THE HYENA & OTHER MEN

“These photographs came about after a friend emailed me an image taken on a cellphone through a car window in Lagos, Nigeria, which depicted a group of men walking down the street with a hyena in chains. A few days later I saw the image reproduced in a South African newspaper with the caption ‘The Streets of Lagos’. Nigerian newspapers reported that these men were bank robbers, bodyguards, drug dealers, debt collectors. Myths surrounded them. The image captivated me.

Through a journalist friend I eventually tracked down a Nigerian reporter, Adetokunbo Abiola, who said that he knew the ‘Gadawan Kura’ as they are known in Hausa (a rough translation: ‘hyena handlers/guides’).

A few weeks later I was on a plane to Lagos. Abiola met me at the airport and together we took a bus to Benin City where the ‘hyena men’ had agreed to meet us.” – PIETER HUGO (Full Text Here)

THE HYENA & OTHER MEN(Prestel 2007)

Photographs by Pieter Hugo
Text by Adekotunbo Abiola
Book design by Damien Poulain

Henan, China – An elderly Chinese woman has stunned her family and fellow villagers by growing from her forehead a horn than resembles a goat’s.

Grandmother Zhang Ruifang, 101, of Linlou village, Henan province, began developing the mysterious protrusion last year. Since then it has grown 2.4in in length and another now appears to emerging on the other side of the mother of seven’s forehead. The condition has left her family baffled and worried.